Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach Mini-Pitch

The Challenge

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach engage over 3,000 local youth each year with fun, educational activities to equip them for success in life. With 90 percent of members coming from low-income households, the organization needed a safe space to coordinate activities—such as soccer clinics and inter-club tournaments—and for local youth to gather for pick-up games. A proposed solution was to transform an underutilized basketball court at the clubs’  Westside Center location into a mini soccer pitch, but this plan would require financial contributions and collaboration from several partners.

The Solution

The Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation had partnered with the U.S. Soccer Foundation to increase access to soccer for young women with the United for Girls initiative. After learning about the clubs’ efforts to meet the need for athletic resources in Long Beach, initiative leaders decided to partner with the organization to repurpose the Westside basketball court with Musco’s Mini-Pitch System™ modular sports solution. Complete with fencing, goals, benches, lockable storage, ADA-compliant access, and Musco’s TLC for LED® lighting, the Mini-Pitch System provides club members with an all-inclusive athletic resource to facilitate the development of organized activities and extend playtime later into the evenings with clean, controlled lighting.